Bradley Gibson

Featuring a mix of fiction and real life, Touch Me Not explores intimacy in an experimental feature film that manages to make sex seem unlikely and tiresome.

Hardy and Nachman’s film is the uncommon near-perfect documentary: the filmic elements fade, done so well the viewer focuses on the dogs and their journey. All of this leads up to the tremendous joy of freedom and partnership for those whose lives are transformed by their new guide dogs.

Bonilla has directing chops, but she needs to refine them. She does show real potential and is a director to watch as her career proceeds.

The film runs long. Director Rick Alverson could have wrapped up this disturbing meditation in less time and still been as effective at painting his precisely beautiful dark image.

Bruce Thierry Cheung adapted this story from a novel by Dean Bakopoulos, brilliantly changing the setting from Michigan to the California desert. The film is light on dialog and heavy on brutally beautiful cinematography painting the mood.

Lowen does a masterful job of presenting the anti-choice movement without spin.

Normal is action-centric brain candy, with some pokes at timely social/political topics. It’s not that heavy, however, this film won’t change your life. It will allow you to relax into catharsis and put a smile on your face.

The Irish humor and setting make for a lovely time with the film as we get a droll glimpse of daily life in Ireland, and things that are lost and found again.

A Glitch in the Matrix is timely and full of mystery and wonder, but lingering on descriptions of surreal subjective experience misses the point. This would be a much more interesting movie if it had more focus on the science of simulation theory.

Remembering Gene Wilder is a beautiful, affectionate, albeit brief, biography of an actor who was adored by all.

The mafia murder images are stomach turning, viewers take note. Letizia talks about her life at great length and some of it is redundant, but she is always charming and inspirational, living as a strong, independent woman in a crushing patriarchy.

Despite struggling with a thematic focus, the film presents a woman who is well worth getting to know.

This is a fantastic film. Imagine any John Hughes film as a drug-fueled drama.

Cash’s film is reflective and accomplished, showing the world through the eyes of a young woman challenged by a painful childhood and by the culture of her times, finding her own way through the chaos around her to a functional adult life.

Europe’s New Faces is a worthy exercise to pull back the curtain on the experience, but it should perhaps be edited down to 90 minutes or so and include some framing context so we know who and what we are seeing and why the migrants chose to make this trip.

Despite the flaws in the script, Pattinson and Zendaya deliver their roles beautifully.

Of course, Ballerina is not deeply cerebral cinema; rather, it’s goofy fun, but the filmmakers have elevated violence to a fine art, and it does play like a ballet in the elegant precision and breathtaking physicality of the performances. Enjoy it for what it is, and buckle up for an intense thrill ride.

Mother Mary is an art film at its core, and will not suit everyone’s palette, but for the audience it connects with, there’s a beautiful journey from sorrow to confession and possible absolution.

The Bride is a delightfully insane romp that falls short of landing its message in mayhem. But what glorious mayhem it is.

Even if this doesn’t wind up being your favorite version of the film, it’s worth seeing Fennell’s updated take.

The filmmaker plays with our assumptions around justice and race. While A Lot of Nothing uses elements ripped from the headlines, in this context, what you expect to come from it will say more about you than it does the script. The revelation of the final act changes everything that has gone before. Hang onto the edge of your seat for a wickedly entertaining ride.

This is a film that shouldn’t work. It should collapse under its own weight, but somehow, in the end, it all comes together after a fashion, and that’s the magic of Coppola.

The quiet pace of The Road Dance, along with the ebbs and flows of the events around the characters, give it an authenticity and space to feel the impact. You may be captivated just as the filmmaker and I were.

Yardie is a ripping classic gangster tale done right, but that’s only part of the appeal. It goes beyond the narrative into full cultural immersion with music as the window into a time and place.

What We Started achieves the directors stated goal of being an impressively comprehensive history of EDM. So much so that the film drags: unless one is a truly deep aficionado, 90 densely packed minutes of info about EDM is too much. It would work better with more music and less detail.

The 7 rating is for his movie. Vance himself, in his preachy, condescending book, gets it wrong.

As with all dramatized stories of real lives, artistic license hammers messy reality into a watchable film. Dramas are not documentaries. The essential emotions of Freddie’s life and the history of the band are here. There’s nothing unexpected in the structure of the movie. It’s a visit with some old mates you’ve not seen in a long time.

Red Right Hand fully delivers in the action realm.